Topic: Switch 2 Boxed Physical Releases

I love the extras that came with the Hades II physical version too, but I was a bit disappointed to see that the game still required a 5 GB download, which is quite a lot for a 10 GB game. I know they recently released a big story update which probably came too late to be included on the Switch 2 cartridge, but surely that update's files don't take 50% of the entire game? So either the full game isn't on the cartridge, or there's some weird issue that causes the Switch 2 to download files that are already there, similar to what happened with Guardians of Azuma.

It seems the price tag for this one is gonna be 60+ euros/dollars, though. That's quite a hefty price for something that's essentially an indie game with an indie budget, even if it has the Marvel license.

@Polvasti The integrity is more important to me (if it is true ofc!).

That way they are giving the Switch 2 owners a true physical edition.

The Switch 1 is 100% physical as well.

This should be the default choice for all releases. Pay MORE for true physical or pay less to get it from the eShop. GKC will probably be the same price as normal release anyway

@Polvasti
It’s an absolutely necessary download? (Hades 2)

Because with Guardians, I just told it to not download the update (and I have the auto download option unselected in my system settings) and it was fine. Played the whole thing straight from the cartridge for 50 hours.

@rallydefault I dunno if it's absolutely necessary, but I do know the most recent update included some extra story content which supposedly adds to its true ending, and that update came so soon before the release of the Switch 2 physical edition that it probably isn't included on the cartridge. Since Hades II is such a plot-heavy game, personally I wouldn't play it without this update if it makes the plot more complete.

So it's kind of a different situation than with Azuma, where the cartridge wasn't missing any essential content, but due to some weird technical reason it caused the Switch 2 to download the same data that was already there. I suspect there's something similar going on here, but on top of that the downloadable data most likely includes this new story update.

@Polvasti
I see what you’re saying, but I’m trying to say that the Guardians thing was and has always been easily avoidable by just clicking “start software” instead of “download” when it first says a patch is available. You need to make sure automatic software downloads are disabled in your settings, too, otherwise it will start the software but still download the patch in the background.

Once you download a patch for a physical game, though, your system will always remember that and will require not only that patch but also all future patches unless you do a factory reset.

So, yeah, sounds like Hades 2 is probably missing some story stuff, but I would bet the full game is on the cartridge and can be played without downloading anything if you follow those steps.

You're definitely getting a playable game on the Hades II cartridge, and the download isn't mandatory. You're just not going to get the final version of the game with all the patches for a couple of reasons.

The first is that the lead time on Switch 2 cartridges is very long, of the order of 3-4 months. That means that for a game releasing now, you'd need to have the contents ready by August at the latest. For a game that released in September, there simply wouldn't have been any way to get post-release updates on there, short of sending them back in time.

The other is that they're probably going to keep working on the game post-release for another year or so. Even the original Hades, where the cartridge came out a year after the download release, was still getting patches after that.

So, the only way you're getting a game's final version complete on cart these days is if the developers down tools three months before the release and never touch it again, which probably isn't an ideal scenario in most cases.

@Matt_Barber
It depends on the game entirely.

Anything like Mario Kart, Air Riders… yea, those games get patches all the time. No worries.

But most single-player stuff? Patches are definitely not necessary, and some actually don’t get any. Bananza is a good example. No need to download any patches for that one if you don’t want the dlc.

Hades 2…. I don’t know. That’s a middle ground for me. I’ll play through it without any patches first, and if I wanna keep it going then I’ll up the version.

@rallydefault Bananza has already had two patches since it launched, so you probably didn't pick the best example there.

That's just the reality of modern video games, even single player ones. They're far too complex for a relatively small professional QA team to uncover them all during development. Sometimes you've got to wait until you've got millions of players to find them, so there's always going to be a small team dedicated to post-launch fixes even when they're not planning any DLC.

I've only got a handful of games on Switch cartridge where there are no fixes and most of those were ones when the physical release only happened years after the digital one, or they made a reprint that incorporated all the patches up to that point.

Personally, I don't mind having updates and patches for physical Switch games at all, since I don't really buy them for preservation or collecting reasons. The main reasons I buy physical editions are so that I can share them with my spouse and friends, resell them if I want, and to save storage space on the console. That last reason is especially relevant with the Switch 2, since the game sizes are obviously larger than on the first Switch and since MicroSD Express cards are so expensive still. I'm not gonna pay 200 euros for a 1 TB storage card, that's almost half the price of the console itself! So I only have the 256 GB one.

So, because of these storage issues it was a bit disappointing to find out that Hades II, a 10 GB game, has a 5 GB day one update. Especially since something similar had already happened Guardians of Azuma, where the update essentially forced you to download all of the same data that's already on cartridge. That one was confirmed to be unintended technical issue, but AFAIK it still isn't fixed. I've no idea if Hades II has the same issue, but like I said, I can't imagine the size of the recent update really is 50 % of the entire game. Hopefully this kind of thing isn't gonna become prevalent with Switch 2 physical cartridges, otherwise I'm gonna run out of storage space.

@Matt_Barber
No, you're not understanding what I'm saying. I'm using Bananza as an example for exactly my point: you don't need to download patches if you just want to play through a game off your cartridge, especially single-player games where most of the patches released are just minor brush-ups and stuff like that.

I haven't downloaded any of the Bananza patches and I've played through the entire game (pretty close to 100%ing it, actually) without any issues. No crashes, my console never spat out toast and then exploded. Everything was fine. Trails in the Sky. Shinobi. Grand Bazaar. Guardians of Azuma. Cyberpunk. And those are just the recent games I've played straight from my cartridge without downloading any patches even though patches were available.

The only games that you NEED to download any patches are the ones that you play online with other people. And even then, you can usually play the other parts of the game off the cartridge. For example, I haven't done any patches on my copy of Kirby Air Riders yet because I'm just playing the single-player stuff for now. If I want to play online in the future, then I'll need to download the patches.

Just because patches are released for single-player games and stuff doesn't mean you need to download them.

@Polvasti
My friend, I don't know how else to say this: The Guardians of Azuma thing was never an actual issue. You just need to NOT click "download now" when you put your cartridge in for the first time, also making sure your console has disabled automatic software updates. The game will not download anything and will play just fine from the cartridge if you do those two steps, and Marvelous posted that exact process when the game came out.

Unfortunately, once you download one patch for a physical game, your system will forever remember that and will force you to redownload/download all future patches unless you do a full system reset. It's one of the more frustrating system issues that I believe Nintendo should fix.

The issue that stops you from downgrading a game is the save file. It's relatively easy to roll one forward to a new version but typically bordering on impossible to roll one back, at least unless the developer goes out of their way to fix the format for the initial release and never changes it.

Deleting both the updates and the save file, including cloud backup, is usually enough to let you revert to the base version on the cartridge. You shouldn't need to do a system reset.

As for whether patches that add free content or fix bugs that aren't completely game-breaking are worth it, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

It is an issue if the developer releases significant post-launch content updates, which are quite common in farming and life sims like this one, and which most players (including me) would want to get. With Guardians of Azuma specifically, Marvelous released a big update which fixed some major flaws with the game, such as Summer Village having too little development space for fields, and your bond level with NPCs being capped at 10. So you could either turn off software updates and refuse these changes to the game which make it better, or accept the updates, in which case you have to install 12 GB of files on your console. Neither of which is exactly optimal.

I found a Reddit discussion where someone explains what went wrong with Guardians of Azuma:

Old thread but it seems like what Marvelous should have done is made the Switch 2 edition content part of the DLC file. Their mistake was making the Switch 2 edition content part of an update patch. Because it’s a “patch” and not dlc as soon as the game needed a new patch that wasn’t on the cart it redownloads all the Switch 2 edition “content” again.

If you look at how Nintendo is doing this they simply bundle the Switch 2 content as DLC. Games will get updates but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will download DLC. Take Mario Party for example. It’s a 5.4 gig game on Switch 1 and the upgrade pack is 12.6 gig dlc. The physical copy has everything on the cart. Mario Party has gotten two post launch patches and yet it didn’t download the upgrade pack data precisely because it’s all of that data is a DLC pack rather than an update.

I wonder if this explains the 5 GB update for Hades II as well? And if it can be fixed as easily as this person claims, hopefully third-party publishers will take note of it with future Switch 2 physical releases. Unfortunately Marvelous didn't learn their lesson from Azuma, as the Switch 2 version of The Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar also makes you download a 5 GB update (for a game that's 8 GB in total).

@Polvasti
I played completely through Guardians off the cartridge and never had an issue. The Summer dev zone is smaller than the others, sure, but you quickly unlock other dev zones there (as you do in all the seasons), and it really wasn't a big deal. I wouldn't even call it a "deal" at all lol

And the NPC cap also wasn't an issue - I mean, you played the game, right? It's like any farming sim - you unlock conversations and romance and stuff as you level up your relationships. Doesn't really matter if the scale is 1-10 or 1-99 as long as the events are there, which they were.

The Reddit (lol) thing you cite is fine and all, but again, irrelevant to what I'm saying: You don't NEED to download any patches for games like this if you don't want to. And if you don't download any patches, you're not going to encounter the situation you're talking about.

So, yea. Played it entirely off the cartridge. Loved it. Probably gonna do another run of it once I'm done with Bazaar, actually. Such a fun game!